August 03, 2007

Vietnamese Crossover Restaurants

You can measure the maturity of an immigrant group by the distance that their restaurants stray from their traditional enclaves. In the last decade, there's been an upshot of such 'crossover' restaurants that are delivering Vietnamese food to non-Vietnamese people in locations outside of typical Little Saigon neighborhoods.

Journalist and author Andrew Lam invited me to write about how Vietnamese food and cooking are impacting America for New American Media, the nation's oldest ethnic media organization. I spoke to three seasoned restaurateurs -- Khanh Tran in Bergen County, New Jersey; Eric Banh in Seattle, Washington; and Stephanie Dinh in Westminster, California. Here is the piece for you to peruse: